Chapter 3: Demographic Perspectives

A set of vocabulary flashcards covering the historical and modern perspectives of demography, including major theories and transitions, as presented in Chapter 3 of 'Population: An Introduction to Concepts and Issues' by John R. Weeks.

Demographic Perspective

A way of providing answers to two key questions: What are the causes of population growth (or change)? and What are the consequences of population growth or change?

Genesis (~1,300 BCE)

A demographic perspective summarized by the command: “Be fruitful and multiply.”

Confucius (~500 BCE)

Argued that governments should maintain a balance between population and resources.

Plato (~360 BCE)

Maintained that population quality is more important than quantity.

Aristotle (~340 BCE)

Believed that population size should be limited and suggested that abortion might be appropriate.

Cicero (~50 BCE)

Argued that population growth was necessary to maintain the Roman Empire.

St. Augustine (~400 CE)

Believed abstinence is the preferred way to deal with sexuality, while marriage and procreation are the second best option.

St. Thomas Aquinas (~1280 CE)

Stated that celibacy is not better than marriage and procreation.

Ibn Khaldun (1380 CE)

Argued that population growth is inherently good because it increases occupational specialization and raises incomes.

Mercantilism (1500–1800)

A perspective where increasing national wealth depends on a growing population to stimulate export trade.

Physiocrats (1700–1800)

Argued that the wealth of a nation is in land, not people; therefore, population size depends on the wealth of the land, which is stimulated by free trade (laissez-faire).

Malthusian Perspective (1798)

The argument that population grows exponentially while food supply grows arithmetically, leading to misery (poverty) in the absence of moral restraint.

Neo-Malthusian (~1800)

Accepts the premise that population growth outstrips resources, but unlike Malthus, believes birth control measures are appropriate checks.

Marxian Perspective (~1844)

The view that each society at every point in history has its own law of population; poverty is seen as a consequence of capitalism rather than population growth.

John Stuart Mill

19th-century theorist who proposed that the standard of living is a major determinant of fertility levels and that population would eventually stabilize as people progress culturally and morally.

Social Capillarity

Arsène Dumont's principle describing the desire of people to rise on the social scale and increase individuality, which requires using birth control to have a small family.

Émile Durkheim

Argued that population growth leads to a greater division of labor and societal specialization, resulting in increased economic well-being.

Demographic Transition (Original Formulation, 1945)

The process whereby a country moves from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates with an interstitial spurt in population growth.

Theory of Demographic Change and Response (1963)

Suggests that demographic responses made by individuals to population pressures are determined by the means available to them to respond.

Easterlin relative cohort size hypothesis (1968)

The idea that successively larger young cohorts put pressure on young men's relative wages, forcing a tradeoff between family size and overall well-being.

Second Demographic Transition (1987)

A concept used to explain the evolution of below-replacement fertility levels in many societies.

Modernization Theory

A macro-level theory suggesting society-wide increases in income and public health infrastructure brought about modern declines in mortality and subsequent declines in birth rates.

Secularization

In the context of the Princeton European Fertility Project, this refers to the modernization of thought (e.g., Enlightenment) that may be as important as industrialization in limiting family size.

Demographic Metabolism

The process where every year, each age group in a society is replaced by the next younger age group.

Health and Mortality Transition

The shift from deaths at younger ages due to communicable disease to deaths at older ages due to degenerative diseases.

Fertility Transition

The shift from natural (and high) fertility to controlled (and low) fertility.

Age Transition

The “master transition” involving changing numbers and percentages of people at each age and sex as mortality and fertility decline and migrants flow in and out.

Migration Transition

Driven by an oversupply of young people in rural areas looking for jobs, leading them to leave in search of economic opportunity.

Urban Transition

The shift that begins with migration from rural to urban areas and evolves into a state where most humans are born, live, and die in cities.

Family and Household Transition

The increasing diversity in family composition brought about by longer life, lower fertility, an older age structure, and the empowerment of women.